1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pager (radio calling receiver) having a means for storing a plurality of messages as well as a function of displaying a plurality of characters.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing a conventional, commonly known pager with a display. In FIG. 13, reference numeral 15 denotes an antenna; 16, a radio section; 17, a waveform shaping section; 18, a decoder section; 19, a control section; 20, a notification control circuit; 21, an EEPROM; 22, a memory section; 23, a display control section; 24, a display section; 25, a read switch; 26, a motor; 27, a LED; and 28, a singing section.
A high-frequency signal received by the antenna 15 and the radio section 16 is demodulated into a digital signal by the waveform shaping section 17. The digital signal is decoded by the decoder section 18. The control section 19 compares a received calling address with a selective calling address of the pager concerned which is written in the EEPROM 21. If they coincide with each other, the control section 19 operates the notification control circuit 20 to drive the LED 27 together with the singing section 28 or the motor 26, to thereby notify the user of reception of a signal that is directed to the address of the pager concerned.
If a message signal follows the received address (i.e., the address of the pager concerned), the decoder section 18 decodes the message signal and the control section 19 stores it in the memory section 22 together with a reception time. The control section 19 reads message data from the memory section 22, and the display control section 23 controls the display section 24 to display the message. A stored message can be read out again from the memory section 22 by depressing the read switch 25. A plurality of stored messages can be sequentially read out by depressing the read switch 25 a necessary number of times.
However, when receiving message information, the above conventional pager with a display separately displays individual messages. Further, in displaying stored messages, the conventional pager separately displays those on different pages in order of their reception times.
In a paging service, the number of characters (and symbols) of a message that can be transmitted at one time is limited due to limitations from a signal scheme or for the purpose of reducing the degree of congestion of telephone lines. Therefore, when the number of characters of a message to be transmitted exceeds the character number limitation, the sender is required to transmit its divided parts in the form of plural times of transmissions.
In particular, in recent years, the free-word transmission is the mainstream in which kana-characters and alphanumeric characters are transmitted with two message numeric characters used as a unit. For example, even in a service which allows 24 message numeric characters to be transmitted at a time, only 11 kana-characters can be transmitted at a time because of the use of a free-word conversion code.
Therefore, even when the same sender wants to send a set of messages, the conventional method only allows those messages to be received and displayed separately.
In this case, to read a set of messages, the owner of a pager is required to depress the read switch plural times. Further, it is difficult for him to recognize the message content because of page switching. The message recognition becomes more difficult when a message from another sender is inserted between a plurality of messages from a single sender.
The present invention has been made in view of the above problems in the art, and has as an object providing a pager which allows a user to easily recognize a message content by displaying a set of messages from the same sender en bloc on the same page.
To attain the above object, in a pager according to the invention, a sender adds a sender identification code or a consecutive transmission code as part of message information. When receiving a message, the pager finds related messages from the same sender by recognizing the code and causes those messages to be displayed en bloc on the same screen sequentially in order of their receptions. Thus, a user is allowed to recognize the message content more easily.
More specifically, according to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a pager comprising a memory section for storing a received message; a display section; means for receiving a message including a sender identification code and for recognizing the sender identification code; and means for causing the display section to display, en bloc, messages having the same sender identification code based on recognition results of the recognizing means. With this configuration, related messages that have been sent in the form of a plurality of transmissions can be displayed on the same page, whereby a user of the pager can recognize a message content more easily.
The pager may further comprise means for managing the memory section by using the sender identification code as a parameter when the message having the sender identification code is received and stored in the memory section; and means for retrieving messages from the memory section such that they are discriminated for respective sender identification codes, when they are displayed on the display section. With this configuration, in the pager, the message retrieval and the display control designing can be performed more easily.
The pager may further comprise means for recognizing an en bloc display cancellation code included in a message; and means for causing the messages having the same sender identification code to be displayed on the display section such that divided parts of the messages having the same sender identification code are displayed separately, by using the en bloc display cancellation code. With this configuration, when the same sender transmits a set of messages such that an en bloc display cancellation code is included in one of the messages, messages up to the message including the cancellation code are displayed en bloc. If the sender thereafter sends another set of messages including, after the cancellation code, a message having an en bloc display code (i.e., a sender identification code), that message can be displayed as the head of the new set of messages.
The pager may further comprise means for measuring a difference between reception times of received messages; and means for causing the messages having the same sender identification code to be displayed on the display section en bloc excluding a message that is received after a lapse of a predetermined time from a preceding message and messages ensuing that message. With this configuration, when the same sender makes transmissions (i.e., transmissions of a separate set of messages) after a lapse of the predetermined time from the preceding transmission even without considering cancellation of en bloc display, such transmissions can automatically be judged as transmissions of a set of messages different from the preceding set of messages.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pager comprising a memory section for storing a received message; a display section; means for receiving a message having a consecutive transmission code indicating the number of consecutively transmitted messages and for recognizing the consecutive transmission code; and means for combining consecutive messages indicated by the consecutive transmission code and for causing the combined consecutive messages to be displayed en bloc on one page of the display section. With this configuration, when a sender intends to transmit a set of messages, he inserts, at the head of the first message, a consecutive transmission code indicating the number of messages to be displayed en bloc. Since the pager judges the number of messages to be displayed en bloc, it is not necessary to insert a consecutive transmission code into the second message onward, whereby the limited number of characters that can be transmitted as a single message can be used efficiently.
According to a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a pager comprising a memory section for storing a received message; a display section; means for measuring a difference between reception times of received messages; and means for causing messages that are received within a predetermined period to be displayed en bloc on one page of the display section. With this configuration, when a sender simply transmits consecutively within a predetermined period messages to be displayed en bloc even without considering en bloc display, the pager judges that those messages are sent from the same sender and displays those messages en bloc. Thus, a user of the pager can recognize messages more easily.
The pager according to any of the above aspects of the invention may further comprise means for allowing switching between en bloc display and individual display by a user""s manipulation of a switch. With this configuration, when a user of the pager can judge whether successively received messages are related to each other, he can effect an en bloc display operation so that the messages are displayed on the same page. Thus, the user can recognize a set of messages more easily.